Worse, there was lots of glass around this time. I thought solemnly.
Oh God, Terra-
Later, I thought at her more forcefully. Jodi had used my elemental name and I knew it was just the beginning of her determined pressing for details. The three of us had private names for each other that embodied our elemental powers. I was Terra, for mother and Earth; Jodi was Fae for Air, shortened from Faeries, an element of Air; Steven was Drake for Fire, from Dragons, an element of Fire. Jodi accepted my warning and we broke the connection, bringing our hands back out on the table. I caught Steven’s eye and the look on his face told me he knew he’d missed something and didn’t like it. I shrugged at him, what could I do? They’d chosen the seating arrangement before I’d gotten there.
We changed the subject, to my great relief, and focused on having dinner and a good time, which of course for Jodi and me consisted of a good and thorough grilling of Anthony. If he was going to date our favorite guy, we had to approve, girl rule number seven. Anthony was a freshman in junior college, getting his General Ed classes out of the way so he could focus on his Art major once he enrolled in a university. He was currently working days as a manager at Macy’s in the mall, which paid surprisingly well. So far – he had goals, wasn’t a deadbeat, and answered all of our questions without complaint – we liked him. For now, anyway.
“Dude that is so cool,” Steven said an hour later, huddled in the backseat of Jensen’s car. There was no way I could drive after power had knocked me on my ass, so I had invited Jensen to dinner with us.
“It is not cool, Drake,” Jodi admonished from the passenger seat next to me. Jensen was outside the car talking with Anthony and Jay to keep them company while we had a little family meeting inside the car so I could tell Jodi and Steven the real details about what had happened at the store.
“What’s not cool about it? I mean she said the guy was already pulling the trigger! If Terra hadn’t done what she did, then he would’ve shot Deb. Maybe she would’ve been okay, but maybe not. I mean that’s a really close range shot, its not like he was gonna miss. You should know better than any of us, Fae.” Steven looked at Jodi with a tilt of his head. Jodi’s father was a Deputy Sheriff and had taught Jodi how to handle a gun, sparing no details about what a gunshot wound could do. I had spent weeks helping soothe her nerves after that little lesson.
“I agree that it is great that Terra was able to save Deb, but don’t you see why she’s worried?”
“No.”
“Fae,” I stopped Jodi from explaining with a hand on her wrist. She had opened her mouth to speak but closed it without argument. “Drake,” I turned my attention to Steven. “I didn’t consciously do it. That’s the second time I didn’t consciously decide to cause an earthquake and hurt someone. That’s scary.”
“But both times you did that it was to save a friend. Are you saying you don’t want that power?” Steven asked me.
“No, I do, but it’s not the kind of power I want to have and not have any control over. It’s not like muscle memory in a fight where you’ve trained your body to know just what to do when a situation presents itself. It’s not even instinct; it’s like my emotions take over and let the power control me. That’s not safe. What if the shelves hadn’t landed on the floor? There were customers in the store, you know.” That caused Steven to pale and stop arguing with me while he considered the alternatives. Finally, after swallowing loud enough for me to hear, he nodded.
“So, what are we gonna do about it?” Jodi asked.
“Nothing, I’m just gonna keep working with Deb to harness and control this. I just wanted you guys to know what really happened. And,” I hesitated, looking down, not meeting either of their eyes.
“What?” Jodi asked, her voice almost in a whisper.
“Just, help keep an eye on me,” I finished, a knot in my stomach pulled heavily on me.
“What do you mean?” Steven asked, leaning forward to rest his chin on my shoulder.
“I don’t know. This time I used up so much energy, I passed out for like twenty minutes. It’s just kinda scary and the fact that I’m doing these things when my emotions get the better of me… Just watch me. Maybe you can be my anchors if it happens again? Help control it?” I could hear my voice shaking as I spoke. One of my biggest fears is not being in control of myself; it was one of the main reasons I had always been straightedge.
“Yeah, sure, of course we will,” Jodi said, reaching her hand out for mine, squeezing it gently. Steven snaked his arms around the back of the seat, hugging me against it. I smiled and opened the channel between the three of us and let their warmth, concern, and love fill the cold hallow that had formed somewhere inside me after leaving the store.
“Listen, if you want, we can skip the movie tonight,” Steven offered with another squeeze to my shoulders.
“No, no, you guys really want to go,” I said quickly, looking from one face to the other.
“Yeah, but you’ve had a rough night,” Jodi said.
“Yeah, but if I just go home all I’ll do is dwell on it. I have plenty of reasons not to get to sleep at night without adding another to the list,” I said, trying to make light of it.
“Only if you’re sure,” Steven said, releasing me from his grip.
“Yeah, let’s go before your dates wonder what we’re doing in here,” I said opening my door to get out. Jodi and Steven followed suit on the other side so they could join their respective dates and I could walk around to the passenger side door of Jensen’s car.
“Everyone ready?” Jensen’s voice carried easily, his voice was casual and bright.
“Ready Freddy!” Steven called back at him, waggling his eyebrows at me mischievously. I chuckled with a shake of my head and fell into the passenger seat. We drove across town to the movie theater in a caravan. Steven was constantly trying to get Jensen to race down the freeway with him, but thankfully Jensen wasn’t interested in plowing us into the guardrail. Eventually we lost sight of both Steven and Jay’s cars as they finally took up a race between each other, dashing in and out of the lanes of the freeway. I covered my eyes and said a silent prayer to any guardian angels that might be listening to keep those two idiots – and anyone else on the freeway – safe.
The movie was your classic shoot ‘em up, no real plot to speak of, feel good, and over in less than two hour blockbuster. We’d let Jay pick the movie. I wasn’t fond of movie theaters as a rule. Usually there were just too many bodies around me to block out all of their emotions and pulsating energies, but we’d picked a row of seats to the side. I was able to put just enough distance between the larger crowd and myself to help keep everything at bay. I was sandwiched between Jensen and Jodi and that helped, too (and the fact that I was shielding as hard as I could after my little display in the store).
It was after ten when we walked out of the theater and a cool breeze had picked up, easing the heavy night air, still warm from today’s high temperatures. I stood with my chin tilted up, lifting my face to the breeze and let it swirl through my hair. Jensen came up behind me, having trailed back to throw our trash away, and slipped his hand through mine, interlacing our fingers.
“Shall we?” he asked, voice soft as if he didn’t want to shatter my quiet moment with the breeze.
“Yeah, they’re waiting for us,” I said. I gently pulled my hand free of his and we started across the parking lot to the coffee shop. We were all going to have some coffee and listen to the live band that was playing tonight. The shop had changed hands at least three times in the last ten years but it always stayed a coffee shop, as if each owner could make it a better success than the last guy. The music grew louder as we got closer since the doors had been thrown open against the earlier heat of the day and the bodies inside. When we finally stepped inside the music died down in the last echoes of the song and we got in line to order our coffees. The others had already ordered theirs and were sitting at a table too tiny for six people, but were trying to make it
work anyway.
“Okay, well it’s after ten, so that makes it after hours’ time, people!” a twenty-something brunette said way too loudly into the microphone as the musicians climbed off the small bandstand for their break. “So now we’re opening the mic up to anyone for the next hour!” She was just a little too excited for amateurs’ night.
“Maybe we should put you up there so you can read some of your poetry…” Jensen teased. I paled at that but recovered quickly to punch him in the arm.
“I’d like to see you try,” I said and Jensen raised his eyebrows at that with a sly smile and turned away from me towards the stage and started forward. I reached quickly and grabbed the collar of his shirt and tugged him backwards toward me. “Don’t you dare!” I hissed at him but he just laughed in the way that made his blue, blue eyes dance in the light and tighten my stomach with butterflies. We got to the counter and Jensen ordered us two coffees. I didn’t even worry about the caffeine anymore because how much or little I had usually had no effect on how much or little sleep I got. We weaved our way through the tables and chairs and people until we reached ours and squeezed into two chairs they’d stolen from another table for us.
“Oh no…” I heard Steven moan quietly as he covered his eyes with one hand and leaned his forehead on Anthony’s shoulder.
“What?” Jay asked, setting his cup on the table.
“Jeremy,” Jodi answered for him. Just the name and we all three knew exactly what that meant. Jeremy McCormack was a kid in our same year at our school; Jay and Anthony didn’t recognize him because they didn’t go to our high school.
Jeremy was a sad boy and took great pains to live up to that image every day. He was very pale, as if just walking out into the sun would cause him to burst into flames or melt dead away, with dark greasy hair that I swore hadn’t seen the right side of a shower in weeks. He was a little too thin with a pinched look in his face and I always wondered if he’d become one of those creepy teenage anorexic boys and wore all black to match his hair. I’d never seen him with friends in or out of school. He was always angry and had many a fight with teachers just because he didn’t want to talk. Hell, he probably still hadn’t had his first kiss yet. And to top it all off, he wrote dark, angry poetry and had started carrying around a journal very similar to mine, which brought on a wave of jeers at my expense that maybe we should start a club together.
Of course, my journal wasn’t primarily for writing poems in. It was my Grimoire, my Book of Shadows, my spell book and I had a feeling that Jeremy’s didn’t have too many spells or power thoughts in the pages of his. But the reason why three of us bemoaned seeing Jeremy take the stage was because we had once heard one of Jeremy’s poems recited in English class entitled “Die Sunny-faced Girl, Die. An Ode to Charlotte Bronte.” Pretty profound, right?
“What’s up?” Anthony asked, looking just as confused as Jay with Jodi’s clipped answer.
“You’ll see,” I said and shook my head, watching Jeremy raise the microphone up to his height and open his journal.
“I can hear the rain, tapping on my windowpane,” Jeremy’s wavering voice cut through the near silence in the coffee house.
“Oh God, he’s rhyming…” I whispered before I could stop myself. Steven snickered behind his coffee cup, trying very hard not to spit latte all over the table.
“And my throat clenches as the water drenches,” Jeremy paused for dramatic effect, “the ground outside and my mind falters like the coming tide.”
“This is it, this is how I’m going to die,” Jodi said, eyes wide in horror as she stared at the black and white boy on stage. Conversations had already started to pick back up as the other patrons decided they’d heard enough, their voices rumbling through the quiet.
“When will my thoughts cease, to give me just a moment's peace?” Jeremy’s voice broke, magnified by the microphone and people laughed. Jeremy flushed in embarrassment and I watched as anger ate away at his color, his eyes narrowing in his usual scowl.
“Dude, get off the stage!” someone yelled. We turned to look for the face of the familiar voice that called out over the laughter and saw Jimmy, Jeremy’s older brother, who was just a week away from graduation. People clapped and echoed Jimmy’s demand, starting up a chant to chase Jeremy off the stage. Jeremy began to tremble in rage, his face completely devoid of anything but pure, unadulterated hate, all of it directed at Jimmy.
“Get off the stage, queerboy!” Jimmy yelled again at the approval of the crowd. He crumpled up an empty to-go cup and threw it at Jeremy, hitting him square in the chest. Of course, being star pitcher of our baseball team guaranteed he’d hit his mark. Jimmy was everything Jeremy was not; Jimmy was muscular and tan, popular with his classic California boy good looks and dating an equally popular and beautiful girl.
Jeremy slammed his book closed and held it clutched to his chest that was heaving in his struggle to breathe normally. I half expected him to scream at Jimmy, but this wasn’t the first time we’d seen the older brother pick on him in public and Jeremy never stood up for himself. A red flush was creeping back up into Jeremy’s face, coloring the edges of his eyes, and I felt a trickling of energy run up my arms. I sat up straighter, watching, waiting. The breeze from outside swirled into the shop, fluttering skirts and scattering napkins. A waitress rushed over to pull the door closed, but that still didn’t stop the swirling breeze. It was like a tiny whirlwind trapped inside now. I could hear the thrumming of a thousand tiny wings and turned to look for the source. I saw out of the corner of my eye that Jodi was looking around too, confusion plain on her face.
“Okay, thank you, um….” The brunette from before was back on stage and trying to step in-between Jeremy and the mic, but had forgotten his name. “Um… okay! So who’s next?” she asked a little too brightly, her voice higher than it should have been. Jeremy let out the breath he’d been holding and stalked off the stage and right out the side door. When it fell closed behind him, the air settled instantly. I turned to look around to see if anyone else had noticed and saw that Jimmy was waving a little frantically at the air around his head, as if a fly were zooming around him.
Did you hear the faeries? Jodi’s yellow thoughts startled me; I hadn’t even felt her place a hand on my leg to open the channel between us.
What? I asked her, confused by the question.
Before Jeremy got off the stage, did you hear the faeries? she asked again and, as if summoned by her question, the memory of the thrumming of a thousand tiny wings echoed in my mind.
Chapter 3
Jodi and I excused ourselves quickly and were out the door, behind Jeremy before anyone else at the table could say anything to stop us. The cool breeze that toyed with our hair from earlier had died while we were in the coffee shop. Cars still crowded the large parking lot, groups of people were mingling in front of the movie theater, talking animatedly with each other, and the smokers from the coffee shop lounged on the outside seating, gray swirling clouds hanging over their heads.
“I don’t see him,” Jodi said, leaning towards me to whisper.
“Neither do I,” I sighed heavily, looking back and forth from one end of the parking lot to the other. I bit my lower lip and thought of earlier that afternoon, sitting with Deb and learning how to search in a wider scope. “Okay, come on!” I urged Jodi, grabbing her wrist and pulling her with me to round the corner of the building to be out of sight.
“What’re we doing?” Jodi asked when we stopped.
“I’m gonna try to find Jeremy, you’re gonna keep a look out in case someone comes by while I’m doing it.” Jodi just nodded, no arguments. After the constant explanations I seemed to be giving Jensen about our abilities, it was refreshing. I spread my feet hip width apart, let my arms rest at my sides with my hands open and palms turned out. I closed my eyes, grounded and centered myself, tilting my chin up to raise my face to the night sky. Instantly I felt the white tingling tendril of power curled in my palm. Now that I knew what it s
hould feel like, it was easy to access it. I willed it to uncurl and sent it out from my body, searching around the building we were standing by.
I concentrated on the memory of the sound of the thrumming wings that I now knew were faerie wings, giving my power something to look for, like a bloodhound with a sent. It swirled around the building, to stretch out through the parking lot, reaching for the loitering people. They all had a light in them, a signature, but none were familiar, none matched the scent my power was looking for.
The twisting, drifting tendril of power caressed over faces, swirling through fingers, ever searching, but nothing called to it. My mouth watered with anticipation as I called up energy from the ground, fed it to the tendril and urged it further on, out of the parking lot to the road beyond. It grew thinner and taut, no longer drifting easily until suddenly, a block away from where we stood, I felt it pull, an urgency in the line of power flared to life that wasn’t there before. The near deafening beat of a thousand wings echoed back to me along the cord of power.
Jeremy was running down the street away from the coffee shop, presumably on his way home. I drew the tendril back, carefully but faster than I normally would have, despite my fear of it lashing back into me. I needed to come out of the trance and get Jodi and me moving before we lost him again. I felt the cord grow thicker, the tautness from being stretched so far folding back on itself. Finally, after what felt like too long, it curled tiny and content in my palm, heating my arm up to my shoulder. I opened my eyes, blinking against the darkness where we stood, drawing in any light my eyes could find to focus my sight.
“Well?” Jodi asked a little frantic. I grabbed her wrist again and took off at a dead run. Jodi stumbled at first but recovered quickly and was running beside me, our feet striking against the sidewalk loudly in the deserted street, leaving the noise of people and businesses behind us. “Where are we going?” Jodi asked, panting heavily.
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